


Change of Plans

by janezy



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Conversations that should have happened, Episode: s03e13 Will You Play With Me?, M/M, lots of talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 16:52:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18996664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janezy/pseuds/janezy
Summary: When Quentin decides to become the new jailer for the Monster at the End of the World, Eliot knows he has one chance to change his mind.orWhat could have happened if Eliot had used his words instead of his gun.





	Change of Plans

Quentin Coldwater stared at the faces of the people he'd come to think of as family. They were all mad at him. Quentin hadn't expected that. They'd been working so hard for so long to figure out how to turn magic back on. He had a solution. He thought they'd be a little upset at the idea, sure. But not at him. He would be gone, but they would have magic. Shouldn't they be, like, grateful? Instead, Alice and Kady and Margo and Eliot are looking at him like he'd just grown a second head and then eaten their favorite puppy with it.

"It's a fair deal," Quentin says. He takes over for Ora and prevents the monster from escaping. It's not like it's the first time one of them has made a great sacrifice for the sake of the others. It's just his turn.

Eliot and Margo are pushing hard for an alternative, like killing an unkillable monster. But he promised Ora and, more importantly, he's already set his mind on it, and he tells them as much. "No clever stuff."

They don't like it.

"Me neither," he says, "but I'm going to do it."

Quentin leaves them and walks up the stairs to his room to pack. He's not there for more than a minute before Eliot is walking in without knocking and shutting the door behind himself.

"I'm not changing my mind," Quentin says without looking up from his suitcase.

"No," Eliot says forcefully. "Just . . . no. I won't allow it."

Quentin does look up at that, scrunching up his face. "You won't allow it?" he questions sarcastically. "I think you've spent too much time as a king."

Eliot walks toward Quentin's bag and starts taking things out, putting them back in drawers. "And I think you've spent way too little time thinking about this. We're talking about your life here." 

Quentin crosses his arms over his chest defiantly. "I've lived a whole life already." 

Eliot takes a breath and continues unpacking without making eye contact. They don't talk about this. Ever. "We both have," he says testily. "It doesn't mean we should throw away this second chance."

Quentin sits on the edge of his bed and watches the tense line of Eliot's back as he shoves the last of Quentin's t-shirts into his drawer and slams it shut. "I know you think I'm important, but I'm really not," he says to Eliot's back. When Eliot whirls around with wide, panicked eyes, Quentin hurries to continue. "Like, I know I'm not totally useless. I'm not having one of my . . . episodes. I just know my place. I know I'm not the best we have at anything. If you want knowledge, that's Alice or Julia. Battle magic? That's Kady. Diplomacy? That's all you and Margo. Penny can travel. Even Josh has his special growing and cooking skills. I'm fair to middling at pretty much everything."

Eliot starts to stutter out a protest and Quentin continues to talk over him. "It's fine," he says. "I know how much you hate when I overthink things, but I've thought about this a lot. I've come to accept it. But this is what I do have. I care about things. I'm patient. I'm determined. I follow through. I stick with things, even when everybody else thinks I should stop. I'm ready for this. The quest made me ready. And you guys can do this without me. You don't really need me."

Eliot really wants to interrupt again. But, Quentin is right that Eliot usually tries to encourage him to think less. Maybe that has been the wrong choice. Maybe all he's done has made Quentin believe he had to keep his thoughts to himself. And really, this may be his only chance to really hear all of Quentin's bullshit excuses so he can tear them down later. So he stares at Quentin and wills him to hear. **I** need you! And, **I'm** not ready. I can't do any of this without you, Eliot says in his mind.

Quentin wishes he knew what that look meant, but continues. "You know, I visited my dad a couple days ago." 

Eliot's eyebrows go up in question as he tries to follow the apparent non sequitur, but actively schools his face into attentive listening mode. He just wants Quentin to keep talking.

"I told my dad about us. About Teddy and Arielle. And you. I figured he deserved to know, since I'm basically killing him and won't even have the courtesy of sticking around for his funeral. But, I told him. I've had a good life. I got to be a husband. Twice. And a father. A grandfather. I was almost a great-grandfather, but couldn't quite hold out at the end there. But, I had love. I had a family." Here Quentin searches Eliot's face for any sign of . . . anything. Nostalgia. Regret. Hell, he'd even take anger. Just -- a feeling. Any feeling. Any sign that those decades at the Mosaic had some sort of an impact on him. This is the most Eliot's allowed him to say about it in months. But, he just can't read the look on Eliot's face. 

"So, yeah. Like, I can say I've already had a full life. And, I know what's it's like to have to get used to people not being there anymore. Not just Arielle. You know, I lived for 12 more years after you died?"

Twelve years! Eliot's eyes widen in surprise. He did not know. Eliot knew what a mess Quentin had been after Arielle. And that was with Eliot to comfort him. He can only imagine what he'd been like after losing Eliot. Teddy must have had his hands full.

"I know. I should have told you. I was going to, but it didn't seem important. After. And you didn't seem to want. . . " Quentin shrugs a bit sadly.

Eliot cringes. He knows what 'after' means. After they got their memories back. After that disastrous conversation. It seems there's a lot of things that it's hard to find out when you automatically shut down every conversation about a topic before it starts.

"Anyway, it was hard at first. Really hard. Gods, I missed you. But I did make it through. So I know that you all will be able to do it, too. And you'll have each other. And you'll have magic. You'll be okay, El. Besides it's not like we're . . . anything. Now."

That's not true! Eliot thinks, but does not say. Tell me you know that's not true!

Quentin finally pauses to allow Eliot to respond, but he's not saying anything, just staring at him from where he's still stood, back ramrod straight against Quentin's dresser. 

"You know, I'm not psychic," Quentin says sarcastically. "You do actually have to says things out loud if you want me to hear them."

Eliot bites back his automatic first response, which is to snarkily reply that he would have heard lots of things if he hadn't interrupted a million times. But, that's not going to be helpful here. And he wants to be helpful. He needs to be helpful. So, Eliot takes a deep breath and word vomits all over him.

"I'm sorry. You'll never know how sorry. I did this to you, didn't I? I shut you down and made you think that you weren't necessary. That you weren't, like, absolutely essential to me. To all of us. You were brave and you tried to hand me your heart. Tried to hand me everything I have ever wanted. And I just. . . did what I always do. I fucked it up and pretended I didn't. Pretended I didn't care. I have lived a long time pretending. Sometimes I do it so well, I fool even myself. You think all your therapy allows you to know yourself in a way I don't. But I know myself. Too well, sometimes. I can handle being in love with you. I have been for so long that I can barely remember what it was like not to be." 

Quentin's eyes widen in surprise, but Eliot continues before he can respond. "What I'm not sure I can handle is you being in love with me. Like, why would you be? Who would look at this and think 'yes, please?' for fifty more years. I have carefully crafted this attitude of self-centeredness, but even I know it's really just the chocolaty coating on a gooey center of self-loathing, courtesy of a series of homophobic, abusive caretakers."

Quentin stands and starts to open his mouth with some comforting platitudes, Eliot is sure. Now that he's gotten going, he doesn't want to stop. "No. My turn," he says. He senses an edge of anger entering his tone, but can't seem to stop it. 

"I just listened to your idiotic diatribe about how you're not special and we don't need you. Fuck you. Of course we need you. You're the reason any of us even know one another! In what universe do Margo and I start to care about anything other than partying except for the one where you physically force us to? How would we start hanging out with mousy know-it-alls like Alice and fucking hedge witches? I wouldn't have become a king in Fillory if not for you. Hell, I wouldn't even know that Fillory exists! I'd be lucky to still be alive and not have accidentally overdosed during a bender or at some random rave. You think you're special because you care and I don't? You made me care. Like, reached into my chest and forced my heart to start like some epic romantic bullshit. And, yes, it scared me. And, yes, I shut you down. Many times. But I never meant for you to think you weren't important or that we could do this without you. And I certainly never meant for you to think we were done. We're not done. We will never be done. You need to ask me again."

"What?" Quentin asks, mouth agape. He knows that Eliot often fakes his dispassionate, laissez-faire attitude. That he cares more than he lets on. But this is a side to Eliot he has never seen before, even after living with him for fifty years. 

"If that's what this is about, fucking ask me again," Eliot says, taking a step closer. "How many times did you try to make up with Alice? Since when do you take no for a final answer?"

"Eliot, you didn't just say no," Quentin says. "You said -- " 

"-- I know what I said," Eliot snaps. "As previously discussed, I'm an asshole."

"You're not an asshole," Quentin corrects automatically.

"Fine. I have assholish tendencies. I regretted it as it was coming out of my mouth. And every second since then. But, I'm not brave like you are. I couldn't get myself to say anything, then. But now . . . Just, ask me again."

"Fine, do you -- " Quentin starts.

Eliot can't even wait for him to get the question out. "Yes! Fucking yes. I can't do this without you, Q."

"Do what?" Quentin asks.

"Anything," Eliot says, finally closing the distance between them and forcing himself to really look into Quentin's eyes. "It's . . . everything is grayer when you're not around. It's like I don't even notice until I see you and then it's like, everything is better. You make everything better. You make me better. I can't go back to the way it was. And I refuse to just keep going on without you." 

Eliot reaches up and grasps the side of Quentin's neck. Quentin's eyes flutter shut and he leans into the touch, sighing. "Do you still love me?" Eliot asks, a bit tentatively. He knows that Quentin slept with Poppy, that he's been getting along with Alice again. Maybe it's too late for them.

"Of course I do," Quentin says, surging forward to kiss Eliot. 

In his not-so-long and yet simultaneously quite-long life, Eliot has had a lot of sex. Eliot has had a lot of sex with Quentin. He thought they'd had every kind of sex imaginable. 

They'd had angry sex, when fighting over the Mosaic or the best method to bake bread or whether Teddy should be allowed to adventure alone led to close talking and light shoving, which led to kissing and shoving of a different sort. And, of course, those fights were generally followed by enthusiastic makeup sex, with apologies swallowed down with kisses.

They'd had sleepy, morning sex, bodies rolling together while still half asleep, seeking warmth and comfort, and finding it. They'd had midday quickies, seeking temporary escape from the frustrations of another failed mosaic attempt or the heat of the sun. They'd had exhausted sex at the end of a long day, barely able to do anything more than find a mutually satisfactory conclusion and fall asleep right after. 

They'd had "I'm cold and I need you to warm me up" sex. They'd had "I'm hot and sweaty but you look so good shirtless and, damn, I want you, but please touch me as little as possible" sex.

They'd had the shushed kind of sex you were forced into when your child is sleeping just ten feet away. They'd had the raucous sex of the empty nester -- wherever, whenever, as loud as you can make it, just because you can.

Sometimes Eliot started sex to keep Q from talking, or get him out of one of his circuitous mental spirals. And sometimes he did it after he saw Quentin looking at him with wide, hopeful eyes to try to express everything he was feeling, but somehow couldn't get himself to say.

Sometimes Quentin was the one to initiate, knowing that when El got upset, a good roll could make him forget about his ever-full wine skin. And sometimes, El would do something so mindlessly generous, like massage Quentin's shoulders when even Q didn't know he needed it or cook Q's favorite dinner when Q knew for a fact that Eliot didn't care for it, that Q couldn't help but think that El deserved the reward of a very long, very thorough blow job.

Quentin was not the prude Eliot had once assumed he would be. He would try just about anything once. Like the anal-retentive, list-making quester he would always be, Q had worked them methodically through every position. Every location. Toys. Role playing.

They'd had athletic sex. Lazy sex. Drunk sex. Very sober sex. Birthday sex. Hey, it's Tuesday sex.

Aside from a couple of bad times where they couldn't quite get their rhythms synced up, it always ranged at least from serviceable to good, but more often than not, pretty fantastic.

But it all paled in comparison to this. To being able to look Quentin straight in the eyes and tell him that he loved him and know that the feelings were returned. Even thinking it grossed Eliot out a bit, but they were "making love." Ew. But also. Wow.

Afterwards, Quentin lay with his head pillowed on Eliot's chest, Eliot petting his head.

"What are we going to do?" Quentin asks, raising up to look at Eliot and brushing his hand through the hair on his chest. "We still have to go to Blackspire to turn magic back on. And someone still needs to stay there with the Monster."

"We have time," Eliot assures, patting Quentin's hand. "I don't know why you're in such a hurry. We have the keys. We know where we're going. We just need to find a suitable replacement jailer who's not you."

"And who do you think that will be?" Quentin asks, then barrels on without letting Eliot answer. "And where are we going to find them? And what about the McAllisters? And -- "

" -- Breathe, Q," Eliot interrupts. "I'm not saying I have all the answers. I'm saying we have the luxury of taking at least a little time to figure it out. Yes, things are fucked up. But not any more fucked up than they were yesterday. We've already made a deal with the fairies and Fillory is okay for now. We've lived without magic for this long, what's a few more days? For once, there's not an immediate crisis. So let's solve this. Let's come up with a new plan. Together."

Quentin smiles. "Together."


End file.
